5 ms·

He doesn’t mention it much but I really think the problem with Higher Education is that people are starting to realize how useless it’s become. I'll tell you h

He doesn’t mention it much but I really think the problem with Higher Education is that people are starting to realize how useless it’s become. I'll tell you how I became convinced of this. (this is kind of long for a HN post but it's a funny story) I was having a discussion with a room full of college graduates recently. The meeting was about how managers should, when they have to order employees to do something, go in with the mindset of convincing the employees that the decision is wise rather than just dictate it to them. In the discussion I jokingly said something like "Don’t go all Lenin on them". They countered by saying they didn’t understand what I meant. After a short and very confusing discussion I said I didn’t understand how they could equate what I was saying to what was done in Communist Russia. They responded by asking what Russia had to do with anything? At that point it hit me: They were talking about John Lennon. They had no idea who Vladimir Lenin was. The reason this had such an impact on me (aside from the obvious) is this: I’ve long been convinced that universities simply don’t care about practical skills anymore. A Computer Science graduate, for instance, can often graduate without having ever written a line of html, javascript or css. But the one excuse Universities had was that at least they were still teaching culture. This incident dispelled that myth for me and at that point I had lost all faith in the current university system. I still believe in education but I don't believe Universities are providing a good one anymore.

jerf 18y ago
"He doesn’t mention it much but I really think the problem with Higher Education is that people are starting to realize how useless it’s become." In my opinion, vast swathes of many college programs are currently completely replaceable by online courses. The only thing preventing this from being acceptable to employers is the college mystique. If the college mystique gets punctured... and I can't think of a faster way than to jack the price up beyond what anybody can afford... and it becomes acceptable to have an online degree, what happens to conventional colleges then? On a pure dollar-for-dollar comparison, the online colleges will kill conventional colleges for value. You might find this hard to believe if you went to college and took some actually non-trivial course, such as in engineering. Leave engineering and the hard sciences, though, and a lot of courses are just mind-bogglingly trivial to pass. As part of a learning content management system I worked on while in school, I once had to debug a junior-level marketing course, so I took some of the pop quizzes from the middle of the course. I got 7/10 and 8/10... and there are people who actually attended the course who didn't do that well. I shouldn't be able to score 8/10 on a pop quiz for a junior level course in an unrelated discipline. There probably wasn't a single 300-level engineering or hard science course I could have done that on. But... not everybody going to college are getting degrees like that. (And, ultimately, quite a lot of even the hard courses could be moved online with little loss...) (I said "vast swathes of many college programs" very carefully. There are yet some programs that aren't very replaceable, and will always have a physical component. Another way for a college to get around this is to make their courses less able to be taken remotely, although as technology marches on it gets harder and harder to imagine what exact form that would take... A lot of people complain about various problems with online courses vs. real courses but I find myself wondering how much of that is truly fundamental, vs. how much of that could be fixed with better technology.) I'm not sure I could agree with "useless", but "poor value" and "easily replaceable with a cheaper but just-as-good-maybe-better substitute" I sure could agree with. If some startup could get past the accreditation hurdle...
- TomOfTTB 18y ago
  I think I basically agree with you. I think any solution (online, trade schools, etc…) is going to be effective in certain circumstances. The bottom line for me is that the current system has established not only a monopoly but almost a religion around how things are taught. Which means no one can innovate even though the current system appears to be failing (though I will admit saying "useless" above was probably over stating the point) What needs to be done is we as a society need to find a way to break that monopoly/religion down and establish a system where Innovation of all kinds can take place.
  - Xichekolas 18y ago
    The problem with the 'religion' as you put it is that no one wants to admit they have been believing something that isn't true, so there will be incredible resistance to change. Imagine if you went out and paid $40k for a super sweet TV, and then some friend comes over and tells you about his TV, which is actually better than yours and only cost $2k. You aren't going to believe him no matter what he says, because doing so is admitting that you did something very very stupid. The same is true for higher education. At the undergrad level, outside of certain technical areas, the entire value of the degree is due to the belief that it is valuable. As long as more or less everyone continues to believe the degree itself has inherent value, it will continue to be valuable. Even if something obviously better and cheaper comes along, those that have bought the proverbial $40k TV are going to continue to insist it is better, for fear that admitting otherwise will make their degree worthless.
    - TomOfTTB 18y ago
      I absolutely agree with you but I'm not sure how that changes anything. No matter how much resistance there is it needs to be done
      - Xichekolas 18y ago
        Oh I agree something needs to be done. I guess what I am saying is that instead of replacing the current system, whatever comes next will just add another layer to it. Instead of having the bachelor's degree as the golden ticket to employment, everyone will start to see the master's degree as the gold standard. This might finally allow for some innovation at the undergrad level, but the end result will be the same: in an effort to handle so many students suddenly interested in pursuing a MS/MA, schools will lower the quality of education and dilute the value of the graduate degree. Then it'll start again with something else. To actually abolish the current system and take up something new would require people with current degrees admitting they aren't the sole route to success, which is like saying you know the $2k TV is just as good, but you preferred to pay $40k anyway. This just won't happen.
whacked_new 18y ago
With all due respect, if that one data point has caused you to lose all faith in the current university system, I can only infer that that one university failed for you. The first reason could be the story, but the second reason is because of this exaggerated generalization. The other thing that you can infer, is that the existence of institutions that fail to teach good reasoning (and practical knowledge) is a failure of the regulatory system, that inspects and certifies the quality of educational institutions.
- TomOfTTB 18y ago
  Well actually it was 6 data points for the record. But I openly admit that the results from that incident reinforced an opinion I already had (which, if I am wrong, is far more likely to be the reason why). As for regulation I don’t agree on that. Regulators can only look at what is being taught and whether they are testing correctly for what is being taught. So they can’t really tell the difference between a class that teaches people to memorize facts long enough to regurgitate them at the end of the year and a class that teaches things in a way that’s compelling enough to get the students to remember.
  - whacked_new 18y ago
    > really tell the difference between a class that teaches people to memorize facts long enough to regurgitate them at the end of the year and a class that teaches things in a way that’s compelling enough to get the students to remember. That actually reinforces my point, and tells me that you actually agree with me. If we assume it is the duty of the regulators to make sure that the educational institution is doing its job properly (and how to measure "properness" is also the responsibility of the regulators -- after all, they have the role of gatekeepers!), then if what you said is true, it is precisely a case of a regulator's failure. Aside of that, I realized how you could have validly arrived at your conclusion (lost all faith): if all you have seen is bad universities, then your generalization is probabilistically correct. Now it's really none of my business, but I can assure you that the belief is factually incorrect, because there do exist very good universities. That you were not able to experience the benefits of one is an unfortunate, but separate problem of the system.
sangaya 18y ago
First off, I've read HN for a while and never felt the need for an account. This post provided that need. Thank you. "A Computer Science graduate, for instance, can often graduate without having ever written a line of html, javascript or css." In the interest of full disclosure I hold a BS in Computer Engineering and am currently working on a MS in Computer Science. I myself graduated without ever writing a single line of HTML, JavaScript, or CSS in any course and have yet to write a single line in my MS. We used Assembler (16 and 32-bit, Motorola and Intel), C/C++, and Java. I never wrote HTML, but was required to write a basic web server that provided access to HTML pages. I didn't write any JavaScript, but did write code for embedded systems. Point is no Computer Science student should ever write those as part of the program. For one, any student of CS worth their weight in salt can teach themselves such things. And the only time it's acceptable in the class room of a quality program is when the Professor asks for the documentation of the program to be an HTML page. In that case HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are an afterthought, not the point of the project, and not taught in the class room.
- motoko 18y ago
  I agree that theory is more appropriate than specific tool training at university, but it's an exaggeration that web technologies are necessarily an afterthought.
  - ramchip 18y ago
    And I disagree with your disagreement. If you have done plenty of coding on embedded systems, compilers, implementing data structures, etc., HTML and the like are very easy to pick up. You can go on the web and find yourself some tutorials, and at the end you'll do some decent web programming. But try to find some good tutorials about processor architecture, memory cache, digital circuits... and it's much, much harder to end up proficient without any guidance (it sounds easy if you know these already - but imagine you had no notion at all of digital circuits, where do you start? how do you even know it's important?). University doesn't necessarily teaches you everything in depth but it does at least expose you to the various implications of programming, such that if you end up in a big project, whatever it is, you'll know the basics and where to find the information. Web technologies are also hinted at during the process, so if you need them later, you at least have some basic notions (from building a web server, etc).

jerf 18y ago

"He doesn’t mention it much but I really think the problem with Higher Education is that people are starting to realize how useless it’s become." In my opinion, vast swathes of many college programs are currently completely replaceable by online courses. The only thing preventing this from being acceptable to employers is the college mystique. If the college mystique gets punctured... and I can't think of a faster way than to jack the price up beyond what anybody can afford... and it becomes acceptable to have an online degree, what happens to conventional colleges then? On a pure dollar-for-dollar comparison, the online colleges will kill conventional colleges for value. You might find this hard to believe if you went to college and took some actually non-trivial course, such as in engineering. Leave engineering and the hard sciences, though, and a lot of courses are just mind-bogglingly trivial to pass. As part of a learning content management system I worked on while in school, I once had to debug a junior-level marketing course, so I took some of the pop quizzes from the middle of the course. I got 7/10 and 8/10... and there are people who actually attended the course who didn't do that well. I shouldn't be able to score 8/10 on a pop quiz for a junior level course in an unrelated discipline. There probably wasn't a single 300-level engineering or hard science course I could have done that on. But... not everybody going to college are getting degrees like that. (And, ultimately, quite a lot of even the hard courses could be moved online with little loss...) (I said "vast swathes of many college programs" very carefully. There are yet some programs that aren't very replaceable, and will always have a physical component. Another way for a college to get around this is to make their courses less able to be taken remotely, although as technology marches on it gets harder and harder to imagine what exact form that would take... A lot of people complain about various problems with online courses vs. real courses but I find myself wondering how much of that is truly fundamental, vs. how much of that could be fixed with better technology.) I'm not sure I could agree with "useless", but "poor value" and "easily replaceable with a cheaper but just-as-good-maybe-better substitute" I sure could agree with. If some startup could get past the accreditation hurdle...

TomOfTTB 18y ago
I think I basically agree with you. I think any solution (online, trade schools, etc…) is going to be effective in certain circumstances. The bottom line for me is that the current system has established not only a monopoly but almost a religion around how things are taught. Which means no one can innovate even though the current system appears to be failing (though I will admit saying "useless" above was probably over stating the point) What needs to be done is we as a society need to find a way to break that monopoly/religion down and establish a system where Innovation of all kinds can take place.
- Xichekolas 18y ago
  The problem with the 'religion' as you put it is that no one wants to admit they have been believing something that isn't true, so there will be incredible resistance to change. Imagine if you went out and paid $40k for a super sweet TV, and then some friend comes over and tells you about his TV, which is actually better than yours and only cost $2k. You aren't going to believe him no matter what he says, because doing so is admitting that you did something very very stupid. The same is true for higher education. At the undergrad level, outside of certain technical areas, the entire value of the degree is due to the belief that it is valuable. As long as more or less everyone continues to believe the degree itself has inherent value, it will continue to be valuable. Even if something obviously better and cheaper comes along, those that have bought the proverbial $40k TV are going to continue to insist it is better, for fear that admitting otherwise will make their degree worthless.
  - TomOfTTB 18y ago
    I absolutely agree with you but I'm not sure how that changes anything. No matter how much resistance there is it needs to be done
    - Xichekolas 18y ago
      Oh I agree something needs to be done. I guess what I am saying is that instead of replacing the current system, whatever comes next will just add another layer to it. Instead of having the bachelor's degree as the golden ticket to employment, everyone will start to see the master's degree as the gold standard. This might finally allow for some innovation at the undergrad level, but the end result will be the same: in an effort to handle so many students suddenly interested in pursuing a MS/MA, schools will lower the quality of education and dilute the value of the graduate degree. Then it'll start again with something else. To actually abolish the current system and take up something new would require people with current degrees admitting they aren't the sole route to success, which is like saying you know the $2k TV is just as good, but you preferred to pay $40k anyway. This just won't happen.

whacked_new 18y ago

With all due respect, if that one data point has caused you to lose all faith in the current university system, I can only infer that that one university failed for you. The first reason could be the story, but the second reason is because of this exaggerated generalization. The other thing that you can infer, is that the existence of institutions that fail to teach good reasoning (and practical knowledge) is a failure of the regulatory system, that inspects and certifies the quality of educational institutions.

TomOfTTB 18y ago
Well actually it was 6 data points for the record. But I openly admit that the results from that incident reinforced an opinion I already had (which, if I am wrong, is far more likely to be the reason why). As for regulation I don’t agree on that. Regulators can only look at what is being taught and whether they are testing correctly for what is being taught. So they can’t really tell the difference between a class that teaches people to memorize facts long enough to regurgitate them at the end of the year and a class that teaches things in a way that’s compelling enough to get the students to remember.
- whacked_new 18y ago
  > really tell the difference between a class that teaches people to memorize facts long enough to regurgitate them at the end of the year and a class that teaches things in a way that’s compelling enough to get the students to remember. That actually reinforces my point, and tells me that you actually agree with me. If we assume it is the duty of the regulators to make sure that the educational institution is doing its job properly (and how to measure "properness" is also the responsibility of the regulators -- after all, they have the role of gatekeepers!), then if what you said is true, it is precisely a case of a regulator's failure. Aside of that, I realized how you could have validly arrived at your conclusion (lost all faith): if all you have seen is bad universities, then your generalization is probabilistically correct. Now it's really none of my business, but I can assure you that the belief is factually incorrect, because there do exist very good universities. That you were not able to experience the benefits of one is an unfortunate, but separate problem of the system.

sangaya 18y ago

First off, I've read HN for a while and never felt the need for an account. This post provided that need. Thank you. "A Computer Science graduate, for instance, can often graduate without having ever written a line of html, javascript or css." In the interest of full disclosure I hold a BS in Computer Engineering and am currently working on a MS in Computer Science. I myself graduated without ever writing a single line of HTML, JavaScript, or CSS in any course and have yet to write a single line in my MS. We used Assembler (16 and 32-bit, Motorola and Intel), C/C++, and Java. I never wrote HTML, but was required to write a basic web server that provided access to HTML pages. I didn't write any JavaScript, but did write code for embedded systems. Point is no Computer Science student should ever write those as part of the program. For one, any student of CS worth their weight in salt can teach themselves such things. And the only time it's acceptable in the class room of a quality program is when the Professor asks for the documentation of the program to be an HTML page. In that case HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are an afterthought, not the point of the project, and not taught in the class room.

motoko 18y ago
I agree that theory is more appropriate than specific tool training at university, but it's an exaggeration that web technologies are necessarily an afterthought.
- ramchip 18y ago
  And I disagree with your disagreement. If you have done plenty of coding on embedded systems, compilers, implementing data structures, etc., HTML and the like are very easy to pick up. You can go on the web and find yourself some tutorials, and at the end you'll do some decent web programming. But try to find some good tutorials about processor architecture, memory cache, digital circuits... and it's much, much harder to end up proficient without any guidance (it sounds easy if you know these already - but imagine you had no notion at all of digital circuits, where do you start? how do you even know it's important?). University doesn't necessarily teaches you everything in depth but it does at least expose you to the various implications of programming, such that if you end up in a big project, whatever it is, you'll know the basics and where to find the information. Web technologies are also hinted at during the process, so if you need them later, you at least have some basic notions (from building a web server, etc).